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> Our goal is to start connecting homes in Austin by mid-2014. The timeline Google's followed in Kansas City suggests it will be another year until service is
by pash 14y ago
> Our goal is to start connecting homes in Austin by mid-2014.
The timeline Google's followed in Kansas City suggests it will be another year until service is available to a significant chunk of Austin, and likely well into 2016 or beyond before the whole city is hooked up. Fiber to whatever suburbs are invited to the party will likely follow after that.
But hopefully the build-out gets ramped up, both in Austin and KC, now that Google's had some time to work out some of the early kinks.
- clauretano 14y agoThis is how it goes with most service roll outs. If the people in the suburbs are really miffed that they aren't one of the first areas picked for Google Fiber, perhaps they should consider the downsides of living in the sprawl. Congrats to any Austin HNers on your freedom from [insert Austin cable monopoly here]
- mayneack 14y agoI wonder if this timeline is slow enough for a given city's cable monopoly to respond with price/terms/bandwidth competition in time to head off google fiber. Doesn't mean they will, but I would think that this is slow enough that they could theoretically ramp it up.
- jseliger 14y ago>perhaps they should consider the downsides of living in the sprawl. I'm sympathetic to this point of view, but in many places it's not possible for everyone to live in the city center because of development restrictions that drive up prices (see here: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/facebook_george_lucas_and_nimbyism_the_idiotic_rules_preventing_silicon_valley_from_building_the_houses_and_offices_we_need_to_power_american_innovation_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/face... one discussion that I've posted before, albeit about California).
- thrownaway2424 14y agoThat article you linked demonstrates the opposite of what you claimed. It's talking about building restrictions in the sprawl itself and, in the Lucas case, in the middle of a rural area.
- njharman 14y agoClose to downtown is expensive because all the shit people are willing to pay a premium for. Distance to work, nightlife, parks, scarcity of family oriented suburbanites, and being where things like Google Fiber are first to roll out.
- driverdan 14y agoTX is not CA. There are high rises going up all over downtown Austin. People are building as fast as they can get permits.
- unwiredben 14y agoWe actually have a bit of a cable duopoly in a lot of the city. Both Grande Communications and Time Warner run systems here, although Grande's build-out area is a bit smaller.
- sounds 14y agoGrande is a small(ish) Texas ISP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Communications http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Communications I do hope Time-Warner is severely disrupted, though.
- bullfightonmars 14y agoI've been really happy with Grande, they provide the best cable internet I've ever had (65/5 mb/s) for $70. Great uptime, with very consistent service. That said google fiber at 1gb/s, yes plz.
- weej 14y agoDon't forget AT&T.
- mesozoic 14y agoThere's also AT&T with Uverse. I'm pretty sure Grande just leases lines but may have better service.
- Legion 14y ago> Fiber to whatever suburbs are invited to the party will likely follow after that. I'm interested to see where in the priority list some of the closer suburbs are. Round Rock, after all, is Dell headquarters. I'd have to imagine there is going to be some strong demand up there.
- j4ustin 14y agoThey said the roll-out was focusing on Austin City Limits, and more specifically they stated the desire to release Fiber in public buildings (offices, hospitals, schools, etc.). This paired with the UT Austin teacher video they released leads me to believe it'll be available to the campus area, probably downtown as well (St. Davids main and Brackenridge Medical Center) and probably the surrounding neighborhoods. Personally, I would be surprised if it went east of I-35, south of Capitol of Texas highway, west of Mopac, or North of 183 in its initial release.
- johnwyles 14y agoI hope you're right! I just bought a house in 78704 :)
- jmsduran 14y agoI hope the fiber roll-out will also include the 78758/78759 Austin areas, not just because I live in the area, but also cause Google's Austin office is located there too :).
- gonzo 14y agoThat office is limited to sales and marketing. But yes, I'd expect that 78758/78759 was lit.
- hadees 14y agoI would say with out a doubt it'll go east of I-35. East Austin is an up and coming neighborhood. The Hipster demand there will be fierce plus it has a ton of lower income households still which will look good for the free internet (with installation fee) version of google fiber. Additionally during SXSW a lot of the tech people stay over there. I think one of the reasons Austin was picked was to show off the speed during events like SXSW and Austin City Limits. The only question is how far east it'll go.